


Eighth Member

by teamchaosprez



Category: Steins;Gate
Genre: Found Family, Gen, Platonic Relationships, Post-Canon, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-02
Updated: 2018-10-02
Packaged: 2019-07-23 20:50:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16166759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/teamchaosprez/pseuds/teamchaosprez
Summary: It's been seven years since the members of Future Gadgets Lab figured out time travel.





	Eighth Member

**Author's Note:**

> first s;g fic pls be nice  
> UPDATE 10/12/2018: im booboo the fool it's been brought to my attention suzuha is number 8 not 7

Daru stared at his daughter.

She was tiny, so tiny that she could probably fit in one of his hands. She slept peacefully as her mother did, both of them exhausted from the ordeal of her birth. Suzuha Amane had been born into the world in the middle of the night, and Daru was vaguely aware that letting his friends know exactly as it happened was a bad idea, considering the sun was up now, visiting hours were about to begin, and there was nothing he could do to lessen the flood of people rushing into the hospital room to meet the baby who a very excitable Okabe had already declared to be the final member of the lab.

Honestly, if he thought about it, it was kinda weird how Okabe knew ahead of time that he was going to have a kid. He suspected that the lab leader knew Yuki was pregnant before even she knew, and had his suspicions that it had something to do with his tendency to mess around with time travel, but he wasn’t going to question him about it. He didn’t quite have the energy to do that at the moment, nor was it something he wanted to bring up on the day of Suzuha’s birth. Maybe some other time.

His attention was grabbed when the newborn in his arms yawned and shifted slightly, and his eyes widened as he looked down at her. Big hazel eyes blinked up at him, and Daru felt his heart swell and warm almost painfully; she was so small, so helpless, so beautiful. He didn’t think it was possible to love another human being that much, but here he was, staring down at his newborn daughter and trying to comprehend how he could feel so much for somebody so new.

“With how much trouble you had coming out, I didn’t think you would be so tiny,” he spoke to her with a quiet and gentle voice, gently poking at her chubby little cheek and marvelling at how soft and warm she was. Daru had never really liked children, much less babies, and had been terrified of the prospect of becoming a father at first, wondering if his perverted jokes and tendency to just hang around on a computer would make it impossible to be a good parent. He was still worried, yes, but as he held her and became further acquainted with her, he began wondering how he ever felt unsure.

She didn’t have much of anything to say in response, but she did stare up at him with wide and curious eyes, and he gently adjusted the blanket swaddling her so that he could see her little hands bunched up into fists. Daru gently poked her fist, felt her open her hand slightly in order to grip his index finger with a grip that he almost couldn’t believe came from such a tiny person. “You’re already a lot stronger and smarter than me,” he told her with a little smile and a joking tone, and she gurgled up at him.

Daru wasn’t one to cry tears of joy, but he did in that moment.

* * *

 

Okabe rushed into the hospital room the moment he was allowed to do so.

He was so used to seeing Suzuha as a teenager, as the time traveller trying to save the world, that he was surprised for a moment to see her as such a tiny and helpless newborn. Yuki let him hold her within only a few minutes of his arrival, and she was awake and alert, staring at him with big, familiar hazel eyes. His shoulders untensed as he got a better look at her face. There was no doubting that this was his Suzuha, the eighth member of Future Gadgets Lab.

She gurgled up at him, and Okabe grinned. “You’re going to be one of the smartest members in the lab,” he told her, and she made another little noise. He knew it wasn’t technically possible, but it almost felt like she was trying to make conversation with him. “In just a few months, you’ll be contributing just as much as the rest of us! Maybe even more!” He thought about a toddler running around the tiny studio apartment that was Future Gadgets Lab, and his face fell momentarily.

Maybe it was time to invest in some real estate, find a bigger place to base his mad science in. Things already got a little hairy when more than one person wanted to spend the night in the lab at a time, unless it was him and Makise (they didn’t mind snuggling up on the couch to sleep most nights; if anything, they kind of welcomed the opportunity to spend the time together. “I’m going to spoil you, Suzuha! You’re going to have all of the science related toys you could ever want!”

As a thank you, he wanted to add, but he figured that might look weird to Daru and Yuki, who were still in the room and probably would have absolutely no idea what he was talking about. Suzuha never came from the future to this timeline; all of his memories of her were from a time where Makise was dead, where the world had descended into a dystopia, where Daru died and left his wife and unborn child behind. What if this Suzuha didn’t grow up to be the same as the athletic and cheerful girl he knew?

Well, he would do his best to be a good Uncle Okarin and support her no matter what she turned out like. He would do as he promised and spoil her until she was old enough to spoil herself. He would teach her everything she needed to know about science and inventing, and he would make sure that she knew about his success in learning how to time travel.

He would make sure that Suzuha knew she didn’t fail, even if he couldn’t tell her that directly. He would make sure that she knew he was proud of her, and that she did the best she could.

* * *

 

Mayuri was pleasantly surprised when Daru asked her to babysit Suzuha.

The eighth member of Future Gadgets Lab was four months old, and Mayuri spent a lot of time playing with the baby and reading to her, so she supposed she shouldn’t have been all that surprised, but nobody had ever been asked to spend a full _day_ taking care of her as opposed to the few hours that her parents spent sleeping or cooking or doing whatever else they needed to do. She happily accepted, and the infant was placed in her arms, sleeping peacefully.

Taking care of a four month old baby was surprisingly pretty easy. She spent a majority of her time sleeping, and when she was awake, Mayuri just needed to make sure she was entertained, fed, and changed. She was good with kids, and she supposed that extended to babies, because almost everything she did to make Suzuha happy resulted in a gurgling giggle and waving of tiny fists. She was a happy and squirming little thing, so different from the tiny person she had been the day she was born that could barely move around. Mayuri absolutely _adored_ her.

“I wonder what you think about,” Mayuri spoke softly, on her elbows kneeling over the very alert and aware baby. Suzuha’s only response was a soft gurgling sound, and another giggle. Mayuri couldn’t help but giggle as well, rolling over and lifting the infant over her head, which earned her a pleased little squeal and a shrieking laugh. “You are just the cutest baby in the world, aren’t you, Suzuha?”  she asked, freeing one hand to poke the infant’s nose and watching her blink in response, as if confused.

For a brief moment, Mayuri thought that the expression that bewildered hazel eyes gave her was familiar, but she supposed it must have been because she spent so much time with the baby. There was no way she could have seen her grown yet, even if the image of a teenage girl with messy brown hair pulled into braids and a tight sweatshirt crossed through her mind, even if the image of a bicycle came to the forefront of her mind. Mayuri was equally as confused as the baby for a moment, only able to stare as the image of a teenager faded and was replaced by the chubby little newborn.

She didn’t waste any time in rolling to her feet with a cheerful ‘doo doo doo,’ tossing Suzuha in the air and getting a delighted laugh in response as she caught her. “I think it’s around your naptime, right?” she asked, glancing over at the clock. Mayuri wasn’t the best at time management or being responsible, but she knew that she should at least try if she was taking care of someone else’s newborn.

With a fond warmness in her chest, Mayuri tucked Suzuha into the crook of her arm and carried her into the makeshift nursery built in the corner of the lab.

* * *

 

Makise wasn’t very good with babies or children, and she thought from the beginning that Suzuha wasn’t about to be an exception just because she was her friend’s kid. She loved the kid with all her heart, of course, and would at least try to be domestic and caring wherever she could.

Suzuha was two years old now, and because Yuki had gone back to work by now, Daru brought her along to the lab whenever he came by to do any work on the various computers and gadgets around the place. The makeshift nursery had turned more into a play area than anything else, and Mayuri spent a majority of the time she could in that corner playing with Suzuha; Makise was more than happy to leave taking care of the toddler to someone that was better at it.

She had gotten better at cooking, at least, and was working on some soup to share with the other members of the lab - she certainly hoped that it would be edible enough for everyone to want to eat, anyway. Makise could still here the familiar clicking of Daru working on programming something and Mayuri humming in the corner while Okabe rambled about his latest idea for an invention, so she fully expected to be left alone - so she was a little surprised when she felt a gentle little tug at her coat.

The scientist looked down, and found big hazel eyes looking up at her. Suzuha was holding onto the bottom of her lab coat with one chubby little fist, the other up in the air as if she was reaching for Makise. Well, not as if, she definitely was, so the scientist kneeled down to greet the toddler. “What’s up?” she asked, her voice soft in a way that almost felt unnatural to her.

“Wanna help!” the toddler chirped, little voice cheerful as she bounced on her feet and reached up with her arms, begging Makise to lift her.

The scientist hesitated, but she put her hands under Suzuha’s armpits and lifted her to rest her on her hip. Suzuha giggled, and let out a happy little “yay!” when Makise carefully handed her the wooden spoon that she was stirring with. She lowered the toddler ever so slightly, watched as her little brows furrowed and she tried her best to mimic Makise’s previous movements.

“I did it!” Suzuha chirped after a couple of moments, dropping the spoon so that she could clap her hands. Makise laughed softly, put the toddler down so that she could run off back to her play corner to return to spending time with Mayuri.

Makise watched for only a moment, and briefly the image of a girl with braids, laughing as she listened to a joke Mayuri made. The scientist blinked, stunned for only a moment, before she turned back to the soup she was trying to make and dug another spoon out of the drawer to replace the one Suzuha dropped.

Maybe she wasn’t as bad with kids as she thought.

**Author's Note:**

> feel free to comment if you enjoyed!


End file.
